I love John Goodman. I could listen to his voice forever, that deep tone he has. One of my favorite movies of his was that scary one with Denzel Washington and a pre-Tony James Gandolfini. I can't remember the name of it, but it's the one with the bad spirit that passes from one person to the next.

Yes, I believe it was "The Fallen". Tiiiiiime is on your side" LOL I liked that movie too.

TIS

That movie scares the crap out of me. I can't hear that song without thinking about it.

Iron Man 2.

This was ok for what it was, a big budget special effects film.
Unlike the first movie, in this film less emphasis is placed on Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark and a bit more on his various rivals and accomplices, played by Gynneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Garry Shandling, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau (who directed), Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johannsen, who has rarely looked better btw. Samuel Jackson has a cameo.

Downey does a good job playing a spoiled lazy playboy with all the money and toys he could ever want. Rourke is a revenge seeking Russian and Rockwell does an excellent job parodying a Bill Gates like rival to Tony Stark, who competes with (and loses to) Stark on just about everything but like Wiley Coyote , always comes back for more. Stark is under pressure from both the US government and his economic rivals to share the Iron Man technology, which he refuses to do.

This movie doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously as Dark Knight or Sin City and that's ok. Just mostly mindless fun that sets up a few more sequels.

I'm writing a film blog. You can read it here.

Did you write that entire blog, Mick?

So far, yes.

Wow!

That'll keep me busy for awhile. Just as well, it's cold and rainy here in NYC today .

I just watched this again. The SSMF scene is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Also like the shout out to Sweetback(Melvin Van Peebles).

I just watched "Then Hangover" on HBO. I know it was kind of a "sleeper" hit, but I didn't think it'd be that good. I was laughing out loud. It was really funny. Anyone else see it?


TIS

TIS, I felt the same way. I didn't think I was going to like it that much, but I almost wet my pants laughing. It was freaking hilarious.

SB,

I am still cracking up at the various hilarious parts of that movie and how it all fit together. I won't mention anything in particular so I don't give anything away, but I even watched half of it again on HBO am still laughing.


TIS

We watched "Leap Year" last night. A cute, albeit predictable, romantic comedy. Had a few genuine laughs, and we enjoyed it. The best thing about it were the beautiful shots of Ireland.

TIS, we bought "The Hangover" last summer in Chinatown. The DVD was lacking in quality, and once the credits started to roll, whoever was filming it had to put the camera down. I understand that to miss the credits is to miss half the laughs, so we have to go back and watch it on HBO.

SB,

Oh yea, the credits is slide show of exactly what happened. It's hilarious. Talk about a wild night.

Btw, Hangover won some award (I think People's Choice). The cast went to the stage (it was a surprise hit)to accept. Guess who was in the audience and had to take his bows???? Mike Tyson He's such a great actor after all.

TIS

The whole Mike Tyson scene was so freaking hilarious. The tiger, the baby, I don't want to say more because I don't want to give anything away.

I know what you mean. I told my daughter about it and her and her husband rented it last night. I can't wait to see what they thought.

I want to mention a couple things too (ie, the missing tooth, the surprise hospital visit, etc), but refrain so as not to ruin it. It was a comedy of errors all the way thru. LMAO

The end slide show shows how the Tyson thing went down (more or less). Talk about wasted

TIS

Oh, I can't wait to go watch it now.

Wow, I gotta watch that later! Thanks

Here's a trailer from The Hangover

TIS

Robin Hood is not a must-see film. It is a wait for DVD type movie. Unfortunately it plays down or removes entirely the class conflict elements of the legend in favor of LOTR style battle sequences and storyline. Ridiculous. The whole point of the legend is that these were common men standing up against tyranny and the rich. Without that the movie is just an interesting exercise in medieval battle techniques that I could have watched on the History channel or Spike TV.

A somewhat intriguing taming of the shrew type story between Robin and Maid Marian starts fitfully but is not very convincing. And Robin's most famous companions-Little John, Will Scarlett and Alan O'Dale are mostly reduced to bit players with little to do and no stories of their own.

The French are the main baddies in the film ,which again, assiduously works to play up a theme of nationalism instead of any sort of "little man standing for what's right". Given that Richard the Lion Heart, King of England, primarily spoke French, had spent very little time in England during his reign and had just about as much land in France as he did in England, the nationalistic element feels forced.

Primarily the movie is about how the man became Robin Hood, and not his exploits as Robin Hood, which is okay but probably should have been a different film. Max Von Sydow, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Durand and Danny Huston also star.

Thanks for that, Lilo.

I think I'll give it a miss.

Me, too. I'm kinda tired of Russell Crowe starring in the same movie over and over.

I just happened to tune in to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I love that movie. It's just fun to watch. Nice shots of Chicago too.



TIS

It's one of those few movies that I just tend to stop and watch if I'm flipping around. Well, at least until the first commercial break.

Kiss Me, Deadly
I like film noir and this has to be one of the best.
Mike Hammer, as portrayed by Ralph Meeker, is a sadistic, amoral thug (and pimp) who likes hurting people and whose primary thoughts about every situation are what's in it for him. Watching Meeker literally strut through the film is a lot of fun. This was also Cloris Leachman's first film.

I love the black and white colors. The fact that much of the more horrific violence takes place off screen just makes it more powerful. The restored full ending makes much more sense.

Splice was an interesting departure from the torture-porn and slasher snuff films that make up a disproportionate number of horror films available today.

First things first. It is nowhere near as action packed or as violent as the trailers would have one believe. With a few notable exceptions, Splice does not show much violence or jumpy camera shots until the final 20 minutes of the movie.

The story is pretty simple. Two young scientists who are searching for a protein to heal animal diseases decide for reasons both scientific and personal to splice human DNA into their latest batch.

The Frankenstein motif is impossible to dodge (the two taboo breaking scientists ,Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, are named Clive and Elsa while their creation, Dren is a dead ringer for Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein) but MUCH more than Frankenstein it's Freud that provides the true horror in this film. It's the implications of what it means to be a parent and how we separate ourselves from our parents and/or our children that provide the scares in this film, not the special effects. Betrayal by or becoming like one's parent can be the ultimate horror.

Attention is also paid to the immorality of patenting life and how mega corporations are not to be trusted. I would be very surprised if the director and/or writers of this film were not at least sympathetic to animal rights arguments. There's an echo of those arguments here. Pets or children didn't ask to be here and deserve protection, not exploitation.

So it was a good movie. It is an intelligent bio-horror movie with a few disgusting and disturbing scenes but relatively light on gore. This tends to make the violent scenes stand out more. It's getting a lot of comparisons to Cronenberg but that's more in the quietness of the movie and the pacing than in the special effects or direction, IMO.

If this does well at the box office perhaps we will see top-line stars like Brody or Polley do more horror films.

Like some of the Frankenstein movies, the true horror in Splice is not in the "monster" created but in the motives and moral blind spots of those who created her. And Freud would have a field day with this movie. If you don't agree with or like Freudian theories, this is not the movie for you.

Thanks, Lilo. I like a movie that scares you AND makes you think. Sounds like this has a good cast, too.

Yes, it was an interesting little flick. The other movie/story that came to mind besides the heavy Freud stuff (which WAS disturbing) was The Isle of Dr Moreau.

I saw two films at the pictures yesterday. Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me, a vacant adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel, and Werner Herzog's energetic The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

I reviewed the first film here.

Thoughts on Herzog's:
An energetic film for which everyone involved has seemingly said, "Fuck it" to all general notions of taste, merit and seriousness. It's genuinely hilarious at times, and there hasn't been a mainstream film so effortlessly bizarre in a long time - its best moment sees Nicolas Cage remove an old woman's oxygen supply, yelling, "You selfish c_unt! You people are what's wrong with this country!" which is telling of its confused absurdity.

I watched Hot Fuzz (2007) the other night -- and don't even know how it ended up in my Netflix queue. While I think British humour is sometimes a bit out there, I thought it was pretty funny while still keeping my interest.

It's about an overachieving cop in London who's sent to the boonies so the rest of the Force police officers don't look so bad. But, of course, there's always a secret in idyllic places.